


the lie in his voice

by tinsnip



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Contemplation, Gen, Vignette, the quiet dissolving of a life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How exactly did it happen when Elim Garak was exiled? There are many speculations on the matter. Here is mine.</p><p>Wrapped around Jennifer Warnes's cover of Leonard Cohen's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZryJ6AWb84">"A Singer Must Die"</a>, which is dark and lovely and full of secrets. If you like it as much as I do, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/famous-blue-raincoat-20th/id261773273">buy it here.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess?

_now the courtroom is quiet, but who will confess?_  
 _"is it true you betrayed us?"_  
 _the answer is yes_  
 _then read me the list of the crimes that are mine_  
 _i will ask for the mercy that you love to decline_

* * *

"Well, well, well. You've really gone all out. And for me? I'm flattered, Tain."

"I thought the least you deserved was a jury of your peers, Elim." His smile is, as always, pleasant. Nothing rucks his scales. The very least Garak can do is smile back.

"This isn't funny, Garak!" Ah, that's Choc'hat, with the voice like a whip and the smile like a knife, charming woman. He turns to face her, bows politely.

"Of course not. My apologies, Choc'hat. I will most certainly begin taking you seriously now."

Her eyes narrow. "You've never taken anything seriously in your life."

"I find it's a habit that doesn't pay." He smiles at her, and she actually grits her teeth. It's delightful.

And who else is joining them for this little gathering? Why, look at that: it's everyone. Everyone that matters, anyway. Here's Gettorek sitting in the corner; there's Hvet in her shadow; along the wall are Torak and Ij and Palca, and he grants them each a smile, a flicker of eyelids. _I see you, all of you, and I won't forget._

"You're really throwing me quite the going-away party, aren't you? I _am_ honoured."

"Is that what this is?" Oh, Tain's voice is mild.

"Isn't it?" His is just as mild, a studied imitation, and no one needs to see the truth beneath. "I find myself at a loss to provide any alternative explanation."

"You always were clever." Tain smiles up at him. "Make yourself comfortable."

There is, of course, no chair for him. He stands where he is.

"Now," and Tain steeples his fingers, drops his jaw to taste the air, "explain."

This is a trap, simple and obvious. He cannot, of course, step into it. Just as obvious, though, is the fact that he cannot avoid it. No matter where he moves, it will catch him.

He opts, instead, to stand still on safe ground, to smile with open hands and deference in his shoulders. "I don't think I need to insult your intelligence that way, do I?"

Tain chuckles. "No, Elim, I suppose you don't."

"The rest of us would appreciate an explanation." That's Choc'hat again. He doesn't need to look at her.

"I'm not concerned with what the rest of you need."

He ignores the gasps and angry mutters, stays focussed on the true threat, who is smiling with every evidence of delight. Enjoying the show, no doubt.

"Oh, Elim." Tain shakes his head slowly. "What am I going to do with you?"

That's another trap. The same strategy seems applicable: stay where it's safe, on solid, firm ground. He waits.

"I can't keep you here, can I?" Thick fingers rap the table. "I can't have an agent I can't trust."

"I didn't think you trusted anyone." Garak lets his eyes widen in mock surprise.

"Oh, I don't." Tain's eyes glint. "But the others need to be able to trust you, don't they? And they don't, Elim. It pains me to tell you, but they don't."

This is starting to make more sense now. He lets his gaze pass over the others, sees how they alternately falter under his stare or meet it with one of their own, angry or determined or frankly afraid. None of them has ever mattered before, but now that Tain can use them, well… now he defers to their judgement. How charming.

"And I certainly can't dismiss you." Tain is musing now, tracing a finger across the table through the condensation left by his mug. "The secrets in your head… well." He opens a hand, the problem obvious. "So that isn't an option either."

It's chilly in this basement room. Really, the Order would do well to invest something a bit airier. Perhaps a second- or third-storey suite, something with a few windows. Deeds done in darkness don't need to be _literally_ so, he muses, aware that his mind is racing because he is quietly terrified.

"I could kill you." Tain tastes those words, and Garak tastes them too, sharp in his mouth. "I could, I suppose. But that seems so… _wasteful."_ The word is thrown out with mild distaste, as if Garak is roughly equivalent to a torn shirt, an unwanted pair of shoes, and he swallows it whole and keeps smiling.

"May I offer an opinion?"

"No, you may not." Tain's voice is quiet, and Garak has never heard it be quiet in quite that way. There are echoes in that voice, thoughts that twist within it that cannot quite be seen. There are hidden meanings and disquieting harmonics, and for the first time he realizes how much trouble he's in.

Still the trap all around him. He waits on safe ground, heart beating, breath slow and even, lying with all of him.

"Answer something for me, Elim." Tain looks up at him with mild curiosity. "Why did you do it?"

"Does that really matter now?" The words echo out of him from somewhere dark and resonant, and Tain's brow ridges rise.

"I suppose not, no." A breath, and there's silence in the room; only the drip of water somewhere else in the building, the creak as someone upstairs moves to and fro, unaware of what happens beneath. The faces around the table are pale and silent. Tain is the only thing that moves, the only thing that matters.

"You lied to me, Elim."

And that's the heart of it, isn't it, and there is nothing he can say.

"I don't trust you, and no one else trusts you, and clearly you cannot be my operative any longer, and if you are _not_ my operative, what are you?"

Tain's gaze moves over him as if he's a strange species of insect, found wriggling in a shoe and granted a brief stay of execution because it's unusual.

_I'm your friend._

_I'm your son._

He does not step into the trap. Instead, he bows his head.

"Do as you will with me, Tain. I'm yours." That much he can get away with, that much he can have, and now he waits, head down, for the blade or the energy blast or the quiet, simple wire against his throat or, possibly, for mercy.

It doesn't come, and doesn't come, and when he raises his head and looks into Tain's smiling eyes, he realizes that he's been wrong all along. There's no safe place when Tain owns the ground.

"You are exiled, Elim Garak. I don't want you, we don't want you, and Cardassia certainly doesn't want you. You pollute her soil, and so you are no longer permitted to touch it."

He didn't have to step into the trap, after all. The trap was already under him, is closing tight around him, and he is well and truly caught. He'd laugh at its ingenuity, if only he could remember how to breathe.


	2. and i thank you, i thank you for doing your duty

_and i thank you, i thank you for doing your duty_  
 _you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty_  
 _your vision was right, my vision was wrong_  
 _i'm sorry for smudging the air with my song_

* * *

The thing that rankles most is that at the back of his mind, there is a creeping certainty that Tain is right.

He tries not to think about it. There hasn't really been time anyway. When one must pack up an entire life in the span of two hours, most considerations are thrown by the wayside. It is, if one looks at it correctly, something of a blessing.

Everything he owns has been whittled down to one small bag, tossed to the deck as soon as the door slid shut behind him because it didn't matter. All that mattered was the viewport and what it showed.

Of course he couldn't see through it when he sat on the bed.

Of course there was nowhere else to sit, because now instead of luxury he must learn to make do.

Of course the only way to see, really see, was to kneel on the ground and crane his neck, and now he has abandoned all dignity, here in this cramped chamber on a dirty transport, in the room that was chosen for him by Tain—

—no, he'll be honest with himself, at least: by a minion. Tain wouldn't bother himself with the minutiae of booking transport for an exiled, disgraced agent.

_Even if it is me—_

Ah, but that doesn't help, and so he blinks, retracts his presence to a tight core within himself, and continues to drink in the sight of Cardassia. He gulps her down shamelessly, hands pressed to the tiny viewport. She is the only thing that matters, and she floats in the void like a petal in a pond, delicate and beautiful.

There is Elekanda, curving soft. There, where the dawn-line crosses the world, is Patka, and there is Hannarad to the north, and there—oh, there is Kardasi'or, her lights glowing bright, glowing to rival the stars, and here he is on his knees, obsessed with something he can't have.

_As always._

There's no time to waste on regret or remonstration. Any minute now the ship will jump to warp and she'll be gone. For the moment, though, she's here, and he needs to concentrate, because he needs to swallow enough of her to last him the rest of his life. He drops his jaw, sips the air, fancies he can taste her dust, and then as Ra'ajev slips from behind her and sunrise glares bright, his dropped jaw hangs open and he stares.

"'Homeworld, mother of us all,'" he says softly, and then frowns. He may be unobserved, but that's no reason to engage in melodrama. He can deal with exile as he deals with all things: with equanimity, with a pleasant smile and a sideways step and—

Suddenly, it slaps him in the face. Cardassia blurs.

_Lies, lies and more lies! I'm choking on my own lies!_

Tain _is_ right. Cardassia cannot afford to trust him. In a society that needs each citizen to think of Cardassia above all, Garak has put himself first.

He hears a voice in his mind, a voice that he's heard over and over and over again throughout his life, through floorboards, through a closet door, through consoles and screens, and it smiles as it speaks: _What do we call it, Elim, when one cell puts itself ahead of the rest of the organism?_

He blinks away tears. It's futile; Cardassia is a blur of red. It's true, it's all true: he's a cancer. He's a soft sick place in Cardassia's healthy flesh, and it's only by his own cunning that he's avoided being cut out before now. He has twisted the Order's pure intent into something selfish and grasping, has denied responsibility, has slithered away, and now that they've finally caught him, now that they've sliced him out, Cardassia will be _better._

His hands clench against the pane of the viewport, fingers bending, fingertips pressed flat, and he imagines he can feel the cold of vacuum. It seems appropriate: chill to kill a growing weed, to freeze it in place so it can be torn out by the roots—

_Melodrama again. Poor little weed. Poor little cancer._

He should be smiling. He should celebrate Cardassia's good fortune. She'll be better now, she'll be purer without a twisted thing like him walking her soil, spoiling the harmonies of the great song. The discourse, the rituals, the meals, the families, the buildings towering tall, the freshness of the ocean, the desert's glare, the moist darkness of the jungles; all of these things will be better without him, and if he had any morsel of true virtue in him, anything that actually valued Cardassia, he would rejoice in her freedom.

Instead he strikes the glass, as if this weak, futile gesture could do anything but leave him with knuckles stinging, and the sound he makes as he squeezes his eyes shut is not one he cares to think about.

_I know better, I know better than this—I should be thanking him, I should be—_

But he can't. Instead, he's filled with hate. It's a bit difficult, in the thick of the emotion, to make out whether it's directed at Tain or at himself.

_I am disgusting._

This is the truth at the heart of it: he is not worthy of Cardassia.

The ship shudders, jolting him. He catches himself with a hand against the deck, eyes opening to stars, and his own face reflected in the pane of the viewport, and nothing else at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Geography from [The Cardassian Sourcebook](http://stexpanded.wikia.com/wiki/Cardassian_Sourcebook).
> 
> 2\. "Homeworld, mother of us all": Garak is quoting an anthem. All Cardassian children--or at least, the ones in Kardasi'or, where he was raised--learn this anthem when very young. It's moving and maudlin and quite an embarrassing thing to find oneself quoting unexpected.


	3. oh, the night, it is thick

_oh, the night, it is thick_  
 _my defences are hid in the clothes of a man i would like to forgive_  
 _in the folds of his leather, the shade of his eyes_  
 _where i have to go begging in beauty's disguise_  
 _oh, good night, good night, my night after night—_  
 _my night after night after night after night after night…_

* * *

He's finishing up after a busy day in the shop when the console chimes, and it catches him with pins in his mouth, with arms full of clothing, with a scanner drooping from his little finger.

Everything hits the floor. Nothing matters more than that chime.

He settles himself before the console, pauses, breathes, blinks, triggers the screen, and there is Tain looking up at him. His eyes are hooded; his smile is bright.

"Hello, Elim."

"Hello, Director Tain."

"I wasn't sure if I'd find you here! It's quite late, isn't it?" Tain is jovial, amused, and Garak ducks his head, suddenly ashamed.

"It's been a busy day."

The shop is a disaster. He finds himself grateful that Tain can't see the state it's in, and then is abruptly furious with himself: _he doesn't care! It doesn't matter!_

But Tain has already picked up on his moment of distraction, and is delighting in it. His voice is fond. "You're so devoted to your work. You always have been. Admirable, simply admirable."

Mired in humiliation, Garak smiles. "What can I do for you?"

"Perhaps I simply wanted to check on you. To see how you're getting along with all those Federation officers." Tain smiles broadly, making light of the obvious lie even as he speaks the words.

"I'm managing well. Much to your disappointment, I'm sure." He keeps his voice polite; he lifts his hands, opens them as if to say, _here I sit, alive._

"Ah, well," and Tain sighs, still smiling. "They must have a use for you, I suppose." His voice trails off, the amusement drains from his face, and here is the real Tain, staring at him, assessing. "As, indeed, do I."

He could say _no._

He could, but if there's a chance, any chance—

"Yes? What can I do?" He hates himself as he says it, hates the eagerness in his voice, all defences down.

"I need information. I seem to remember that was your stock in trade, once upon a time." There's faint mockery in his voice, a hint of distaste, and Garak scrambles to answer.

"Of course, of course. Any service I can do for Cardassia, I am pleased to provide. Thank you for thinking of me."

"Oh, I often think of you, Elim." Garak blinks as Tain looks away, does something out of view, looks back. "I'm uploading the details of what I require."

The file flashes on his console. Triple-encrypted, and therefore unreadable to anyone but an Obsidian Order agent. A charmingly calculated insult.

He keeps his smile carefully harmless, displaying no teeth. "I'm sorry, but I can't read this."

"Really? Why not?" Mild surprise.

"I don't have the encryption codes." _You desert-spawned husk of a—_

"Oh," and Tain rubs his forehead, "of _course_ you don't. How foolish of me! I do apologize!" Now he smiles an avuncular smile. "I suppose I'm getting old. Losing my edge."

Garak tastes bile, swallows, inclines his head to his superior. "Not at all. You're as sharp as ever."

"Hm. Thank you, Elim." Tain's voice is appreciative. "You're kind to an old man."

There's a moment of silence… yes, he's really going to do this. All right, then.

"Would you please give me the code, Director Tain?"

Tain's eyes close briefly in pure pleasure. When he opens them, they're warm and friendly. "Of course, Elim. Of course. Here it comes."

"Thank you," he says, and although the words are sour in his mouth it just might be all right… yes, it just might, and as he cracks the file open his mind is racing, because with this perhaps he can—through back ways and half-forgotten contacts, he can—

But Tain is looking at him with calm eyes, and he knows.

"And when does this code expire?"

"Four seconds ago." Tain smiles. "You just slipped under the wire. It's a good thing you reminded me, isn't it? Otherwise I wouldn't have had much use for you." Oh, that smile is thin.

He swallows, dry-mouthed. "Thank you for supplying me with the code so quickly."

"Well, you asked so very nicely. How could I not?" Tain stops for a moment, thoughtful, then leans in as if to share a confidence. "You know, Elim, you were never so polite before I exiled you. Perhaps it's been good for you." His voice lowers further; his eyes flicker from side to side. "I hope you're beginning to realize how many doors can open for you if you just ask nicely."

What…?

"Now, listen, Elim," and Tain's voice is almost too soft to hear, now, "I'm in a good mood today."

He waits, caught.

"I've eaten very well. Two operations came to fruitful conclusions. And Palca—remember Palca? Clever thing. She's found her way to a new posting. Still under my auspices, of course, but separate from my little circle. I find myself looking for someone to complete my ring." He smiles indulgently. "Someone who knows how to ask… nicely."

At some point in the last few seconds, his breathing has stopped. Without the soft motion of his lungs, their almost-unnoticeable susurration, he can hear his own heartbeat ringing hollowly in his chest. There is just enough breath left within him to force out the words.

"May I please have that position, Tain?" It would be all right, it would all be all right, he’d wipe the slate clean, he’d make himself forgive if he could just—

"Mmm…"

But Tain’s voice is contemplative and sad, and already he's curling up, shrivelling like a dry leaf, already his heart is blackening as Tain shakes his head. "I think… not. Not today. The time isn't right. But you never know, Elim," and Tain lifts a finger, smiling. "Maybe next time. We'll talk again soon, some night. Perhaps even as soon as tomorrow!"

He should smile. Instead he stares, unblinking.

"Won't that be something to look forward to?" Tain snorts, pleased with himself, inviting Garak's laughter. "Something to entertain you during your long nights at your shop…?"

He pauses, expectant, and this time Garak is going to smile. He is.

But he doesn't, and Tain sighs, disappointed.

"Well, then: until next time, Elim. Good night."

The screen winks off, and he's a soft thing in a chair, surrounded by draped cloth and pins and motionless mannequins. The air is like dark water, thick and heavy in his lungs in the small, cramped, windowless shop, and he is beginning to believe that he will drown in this endless sea of night.


	4. so save me a place

_so save me a place in the ten-dollar grave_   
_with those who took money for the pleasure they gave_   
_with those always ready, with those who undressed_   
_so that you could lie down with your head on their breast_

* * *

"Homeworld, mother of us all, maker and creator—"

Oh, not again. Really, it's enough to make him feel just a bit put out.

It's been a lovely day, a _wonderful_ day. The station's chill is bracing, strengthening. The bright lights serve very well to illuminate every little detail of the faces of the passers-by, and he's enjoyed himself tremendously today, watching them to-ing and fro-ing before his quiet shop. Who knows what secrets they hold? It's fun to imagine, and so he plays little games with himself. This harried-looking Medanite is having an affair… that laughing Human is planning to murder her employer… and over there, the robed Ledayli is ready to sell out xer family for xer own protection… oh, there are so many stories to tell! He smiles at the people as they pass, and most of them smile back.

Not the Bajorans, of course. Oh, well!

Now it's evening, and everything's just so, just as he likes it: his shop is tidy, he's by himself, and if he could only get this silly little song out of his head, everything would be _perfect._ Honestly, it's not as if he can even remember the words.

To distract himself, he holds up two swathes of fabric, draping them against the skirt of the dress he's making. Blue? Green? Mmm… blue, yes, and as he pins the sash-to-be around the mannequin, he smiles. The dress really is coming together beautifully. A shop-window favourite, he thinks. Just a bit more ribbon, perhaps a touch of weaving at the neck… it simply won't look right on a non-Cardassian, but perhaps he can disguise that with a draping of lace—

The comm goes off with a trilling beep, and that's fine; he can always get back to this later. He stands, bracing his hands on his knees.

_Not quite as quick as you used to be, Elim_ _…_

Well, that's fine for a tailor, isn't it? He pats the dress fondly, trails his fingertips over its deliciously-soft fabric as he makes his way to the back of the shop, sits in his chair, taps the panel to answer the call.

"Elim Garak," says the man on the screen, and Elim Garak blinks.

Hmm. How unusual. The face on the viewer is that of a man he doesn't know, dressed in clothing that gives no real clue as to his identity.

Garak's first instinct is to terminate the connection, but perhaps this could be interesting. There are only two options, after all: first is that someone he'd probably prefer not to find him has found him, which will make life very entertaining. And second, well…

"Do I know you?"

"I am Grelet." The man nods to him as superior to inferior, which, Garak feels, is a bit hasty.

Still, he keeps his voice polite. It never hurts to be polite, after all! "Where is Tain?"

"That is not your concern. From now on, you speak to me."

Garak laughs, tuts at the man. "I'm waiting for a call from Director Tain on this channel. I'll speak only to him, thank you."

He turns to cut the call, but is stopped by a sound he didn't expect: Grelet is laughing.

"They weren't lying. You have no idea, do you."

 _Second option it is, then._ "Perhaps you'd best enlighten me."

"Then pay attention, tailor, for I'll only tell you once: whatever influence you had is gone."

How rude. "Do tell."

"Tain is gone."

Well, that _is_ distressing. More so than he'd expected, actually. "Dead?"

"Retired. To a nice little place in Arawak, if it matters, which it doesn't."

Retired? How unprecedented! But… complicated. Hmm. "I see."

"Do you?" Grelet leans back, his eyes betraying his enjoyment. "I'm not sure you do. He had a soft spot for you, tailor." He tilts his head, and his sudden smile lifts the corners of his mouth, displays his teeth. "I don't."

Garak looks at him. He's a puffed-up thug, drunk on power. Garak has seen many like him come and go, and has helped more than a few of them along with the latter. "Go on."

"The man you were no longer exists. To me you're nothing but a tailor."

Now Garak smiles, and he flatters himself that, judging by the sudden wariness on the man's face, his own smile's edge hasn't been dulled by this delightful place. "Well, now that we've established my total unimportance to you, perhaps you'd like to tell me why you're calling?"

"We require information. Upload to foll—"

"Ah…" He gestures to cut him off, makes a moue of disappointment. "Do you know, it's been a very slow week…"

Grelet's eyes narrow, and Garak waves his hands in obvious distress. "I _am_ sorry! I'd like to have something to report, but I'm sure I simply don't have anything that would be of interest to someone as busy and important as yourself—"

"Tailor."

The man does seem to love saying that. Perhaps he thinks Garak will be insulted. "Yes?"

"You have a reputation for being clever."

How flattering. "Blown out of proportion, no doubt—"

"That seems to be the case, as you're clearly having some difficulty understanding the situation you're in."

Garak blinks at him, sitting in his office somewhere, light-years away, unable to touch Garak in any way. "Which is?"

"That I own you."

Oh, charming. "Do you?"

"I do." Grelet is unbothered by Garak's growing sarcasm. "You see, you have something that does not belong to you."

"Really." Now Garak lets himself frown. "I was permitted to bring one extremely small bag with me when I was forced to leave Cardassia. Its contents were inventoried. Twice. What exactly do you think I managed to steal?"

Grelet smiles to himself. He doesn't look at Garak. Instead, he folds his hands in front of him and stares idly at his fingernails as he asks, "How is your implant?"

_What?_

"I'm… sorry?"

"Oh, come now." Apparently something's slightly off with one of Grelet's nails. He frowns at it, buffs it against his sleeve. "It's showing signs of very heavy use. The monitoring techs are complaining about the constant signals." Now he smiles, amused. "The system keeps telling us your life is in danger. It wants us to come save you."

_They can track it?_

_Of course they can track it, Elim, you_ idiot—

"How… amusing."

"Isn't it?" Grelet looks up for a moment, affable in a brutish sort of way. "But you don't _seem_ to be hurt. No sign of a beating… no major surgeries? No? Hmm. And yet there's this pattern of repeated triggering… Perhaps you're being clumsy with your pins." 

He smiles. He thinks he's clever. What a pleasure it would be to take him apart. Garak's eyes flicker over his face, memorizing the features, the tiny scar here, the little scratch there…

"Perhaps."

"I admit I'm pleased to see that there's no major problem." Grelet's back to his nails again. "To save resources, since you don't require your implant, I'll authorize its immediate deactivation."

_And of course they know. Oh, Elim. Did you really think you were the first?_

"Now, now, let's not be too hasty," he says, lifting a hand, smiling widely, and Grelet's smile in return is smug and stupid and _saccharine—_

Later he sits in his chair, staring out at his shop.

It really does look rather nice. He's done a good job with what he has. Once he'd had a bit more, true, but… well, where's the sense in comparing then with now? And it is, admittedly, a bit frustrating to be talked down to by an underling, someone on whom he would once have wiped his _shoe,_ but there's nothing really wrong with it, nothing intolerable…

He can manage it. He can manage anything. He's stronger now than he ever was, stretched to breaking and still stretching. He's sold himself off piecemeal, and what's left over has no value to anyone… and one can do anything one likes with something with no value.

 _I can do anything. Anything at all._ Oh, it _is_ a pity Tain isn't ever going to be able to appreciate what he's created. _The things I could do now_ _…!_

Ah, well; no point being maudlin about it! There's a bit more work to do on that dress, and he'll want to scurry a bit to gather up more information for the next time Grelet decides to call. Mustn't disappoint Grelet! Murder him, perhaps, make him scream, yes indeed, but disappoint him? Oh, never!

There is this for Grelet: he is straightforward. Not at all like Tain, who'd lied with a smile, whose voice had been honeyed and pleasant and polite…

Who hadn't bothered to let Garak know that they'd never see each other again.

That gives him pause. It's almost puzzling, in fact. He can't imagine Tain passing up one last chance to gloat…

_Why didn't he say goodbye?_

The answer comes to him in a flash of insight, and he sinks back into his chair with a smile. _I don't matter enough to say goodbye to!_

He sighs, amused. He would have mattered once. The son of Tain, the heir to the throne… well, all that's gone now, isn't it? Dead and buried, along with the sour fellow he'd once been, who'd found so little joy in what could have been such a wonderful life.

Well, he understands better now. Life is what you make it! There's pleasure to be found in the little things: in the slip of a needle through fine fabric, in the walk of the passers-by, in larish pie and Delavian chocolates and the occasional savoured glass of kanar, tasting of the homeworld, _mother of us all_ —

Oh, not again. He frowns in mild exasperation. He is most definitely not going to think about that stupid song. Instead, he's going to think about how he'll never, ever have to hear Tain's voice again.

Mmm. That _is_ a nice thought. It keeps him smiling as he bends back to his work, and soon, absently, he begins to sing.

* * *

_and the ladies go moist, and the judge has no choice:_   
_a singer must die for the lie in his voice_   
_—jennifer warnes, "a singer must die" — lyrics by leonard cohen_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bmouse, this one was for you. I kept remembering your lovely little dissertation about Garak-as-Excalibur... well, hence to the forging!


End file.
